True Blood Season 3: Who Is Melinda Mickens?

This is part 15 in our series of features about the new characters coming to True Blood in season 3. We’ll be taking a look at these new characters using both information from casting calls and from the novels on which the show is based. Beware, spoilers ahead!

Who Is Melinda Mickens?

J. Smith-Cameron will play Melinda Mickens

True Blood will explore Sam Merlotte’s identity this season as he searches for, and finds, his birth mother, Melinda Mickens. We’ve already taken a look at his long-lost half-brother, Tommy Mickens, so let’s see what we know about their mother. In the novels, Sam knows his birth mother and knows that she is a shifter. The novels stipulate that only the first born child of a shifter is given that gift/curse, so there is some speculation about how the show is going to handle this sense it appears that Tommy is also a shifter. Does this mean Melinda is a shifter? Very likely. Do her husband and second son know this? Hard to say at this point. She kept the knowledge from them in the books until the weres and shifters “came out” in Dead and Gone.

What we do know about Melinda is that she lives in Arkansas with Tommy and her husband, Joe Lee Mickens. When Sam finds them, Melinda is living in a rundown shanty, dirt poor and hungover. Life has not been good to Melinda, it seems. Presuming that the storyline continues somewhat in the same direction as the novels, once Melinda’s husband finds out that she’s a shifter – and possibly Tommy as well – it’s going to get even worse. Sam’s stepfather was so freaked out by his wife’s abilities in Dead and Gone, the ninth book, that he shot her. She survived, but filed for a divorce. Knowing Sam’s need to help and protect those he cares about, we anticipate family drama ahead!

J. Smith-Cameron will play Melinda Mickens on True Blood.

Melinda Mickens In Brief

Sex: Female
Species: Shifter?
Age: 50s
Status: Married
Relatives: Husband, Joe Lee Mickens; Sons, Sam Merlotte and Tommy Mickens
Occupation: Unknown
Location: Arkansas